Is it possible to think without brains? At first glance, it seems that the answer to this question is obvious. But only at first glance.
For example, there is a fungus in nature called Physarium polycephalum. It looks like an ordinary mold, which differs from the usual except for the fact that it grows faster. But scientists have conducted an interesting experiment: they placed this mold in a labyrinth, in the center of which placed food. It turned out that the phizarium grows to the food in the shortest possible time. Not only that, the next time the mold from the same fungus crawls from the same maze to the exact spot where the food was last time! So it remembers? Turns out it does.
The lopsided cordyceps mushroom is the dreaded scourge of tropical ants. When its spore enters
an ant, it sprouts fungus, which in the process of growth eats the digestive system and almost all the muscles of the insect. Only the nervous system is untouched. Not yet. But it's starting to change behavior.
The ant with the fungus turns into a
zombie. He stops socializing and ceases all participation in the life of the anthill. Then he leaves the colony altogether, climbs up a leaf and clings to its underside. As soon as he does this, the fungus eats his nervous system, and begins to form a fruiting body growing from the ant's head. From this fruiting body, new spores shoot out.
It turns out that in our time there are organisms living on Earth, capable of memorizing, solving tasks (some of which are complex even for humans) and influencing others without a brain and nervous system? And if we take into account that....
The oldest living organism is a colony of Oregon's cottonwoods, the exact age of the colony is not known, but it is at least 2,400,000 years old.
So it appeared during the Ice Age! Somebody's gonna say. Well, it did. Indeed, at that time the peaks of the Rocky Mountains were covered with ice. But it was in the valley where this colony of sea buckthorn grows that, by chance, there was no ice. But coincidentally?